Background: Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders (SSRD) is an umbrella term for a wide variety of disorders commonly encountered in the inpatient pediatric setting, including conversion disorder, amplified pain syndrome, and psychogenic non-epileptiform seizures. These patients can be high utilizers of medical resources. The hospitalist is often charged with ruling out a medical diagnosis and [...]

Background: Failure to thrive and malnutrition continues to be a common diagnosis in pediatrics contributing to a significant number of hospital admissions (1-5). There is no national practice guideline or consensus recommendation for diagnosis and treatment for patients hospitalized with failure to thrive, contributing to significant clinical practice variation. Unnecessary variability in practice has been [...]

Background: Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders (SSRD) is an umbrella term for a wide variety of disorders commonly encountered in the inpatient pediatric setting, including conversion disorder, amplified pain syndrome, and psychogenic non-epileptiform seizures. These patients can be high utilizers of medical resources. The hospitalist is often charged with ruling out a medical diagnosis and [...]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has required healthcare systems to meet new demands for rapid information dissemination, resource allocation, and patient tracking and reporting. To help address these unique challenges, the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) has leveraged Integrated Clinical Pathways (ICPs), which are flexible decision support tools integrated directly into the electronic health record. [...]

Background: Using evidence-based clinical pathways has been shown to improve mortality in patients with staphylococcus aureus bacteremia. However, little is known if these pathways can decrease antibiotic use as a means of antibiotic stewardship in patients with suspected contaminated blood cultures. Purpose: We aim to decrease antibiotic use in clinically stable patients with likely gram-positive [...]

Background: Failure to thrive and malnutrition continues to be a common diagnosis in pediatrics contributing to a significant number of hospital admissions (1-5). There is no national practice guideline or consensus recommendation for diagnosis and treatment for patients hospitalized with failure to thrive, contributing to significant clinical practice variation. Unnecessary variability in practice has been [...]